Chapter 16. Managing Software (Overview)

Table of Contents

What's New in Software Management in the Solaris Operating System?
Sun Update Connection Product Supports Patch Management From a Global Zone on Systems With Non-Global Zones Installed
Common Agent Container Included in Solaris 10 6/06 OS
Sun Update Connection, System Edition 1.0
Basic Registration Tool
Improvements to How patchadd M Command Handles Multiple Patches
Package and Patch Tool Enhancements
Sun Patch Manager Enhancements
Where to Find Software Management Tasks
Overview of Software Packages
Signed Packages, Patches, and Updates
Tools for Managing Software Packages
Adding or Removing a Software Package (pkgadd)
Key Points for Adding Software Packages (pkgadd)
Guidelines for Removing Packages (pkgrm)
Avoiding User Interaction When Adding Packages (pkgadd)
Using an Administration File
Using a Response File (pkgadd)

What's New in Software Management in the Solaris Operating System?

This section describes the new software management features in this Solaris release.

For a complete listing of new Solaris features and a description of Solaris releases, see the What’s New in Solaris Express .

Sun Update Connection Product Supports Patch Management From a Global Zone on Systems With Non-Global Zones Installed

Solaris Express 3/06: Sun Update Connection support for managing Solaris systems with zones installed. The version of the Sun Update connection software that is available in this Solaris release supports the default behavior of the patchadd command from a global zone on systems that have one or more non-global zones installed. For more information, see the Sun Update Connection Collection.

Common Agent Container Included in Solaris 10 6/06 OS

Solaris Express 5/06: The Common Agent Container is a stand-alone Java program that implements a container for Java management applications. This program provides a management infrastructure that is designed for Java Management Extensions (JMX) and Java Dynamic Management Kit (Java DMK) based management functionality. The software is installed by the SUNWcacaort package and resides in the /usr/lib/cacao directory.

Typically, the container is not visible. However, there are two instances when you might need to interact with the container daemon:

  • It is possible that another application might attempt to use a network port that is reserved for the Common Agent Container.

  • In the event that a certificate store is compromised, you may have to regenerate the Common Agent Container certificate keys.

For information about how to troubleshoot these problems, see Troubleshooting Common Agent Container Problems in the Solaris OS in System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration .

Sun Update Connection, System Edition 1.0

Solaris Express 10/05: The Sun Update Connection services enable you to keep your Solaris systems up to date by giving you access to all the latest fixes and features. You can choose to perform local single-system update management or remote multiple-system update management. The Sun Update Connection product suite includes these components:

  • Sun Update Manager. The Sun Update Manager GUI and the smpatch command-line interface enable you to locally manage updates on your Solaris system.

    Note

    The Sun Update Connection software has the same functionality as the Sun Patch Manager 2.0 tools, with the addition of some new features and enhancements.

  • Sun Update Connection. This web application is hosted at Sun and enables you to remotely manage updates on one or more of your Solaris systems.

  • Sun Update Connection Proxy. This local caching proxy serves updates from Sun to the proxy's client systems inside your enterprise security domain.

  • SunSolve Patch & Updates Portal. The SunSolveSM Patch and Updates portal gives you manual access to patches for download and to patch README files. More information can be found at .

To receive the Sun Update Connection services, you must first register your system. The registration process is initiated the first time you boot your system or access the Update Manager application for the first time.

A subset of the Sun Update Connection services is available, at no cost, to all Solaris users. These services include the use of Sun Update Manager to manage all security fixes and device driver updates that apply to your Solaris system.

To use the full suite of Sun Update Connection products, including access to all patches, the Sun Update Connection web application, and the Sun Update Connection proxy, you must have one of the service plans described at .

The Sun Update Connection, System Edition software was introduced in the Solaris 10 1/06 release. If you are running the Solaris 10 initial release, and you want to use Sun Update Connection, install the appropriate patches or upgrade your system to at least the Solaris Express 10/05 release.

For more information about installing and using Sun Update Connection, see the Sun Update Connection Collection, at Sun Update Connection Collection.

For information about registering your system after you install the Solaris software, see Chapter 18, Registering Your Solaris Express 3/06 or 10/05 Software (Tasks).

Basic Registration Tool

Solaris Express 10/05: Sun Update Connection services enable you to update your registered Solaris system by giving you access to the latest fixes and features.

To be eligible for all applicable Solaris patches and updates, you must register your Solaris software and include an eligible service plan ID. Eligible service plans are described at . If you do not have a service plan, you can register your Solaris software and use Sun Update Connection services to manage the hardware support and security patches that are available on your system.

Register your Solaris software by using one of the following tools:

  • Registration wizard GUI

  • Registration command-line interface (CLI)

  • Sun Update Manager GUI

If you are running the Solaris 10 initial release, and you want to use Sun Update Connection, install the appropriate patches or upgrade your system to at least the Solaris Express 10/05 release.

Note

Starting with the Solaris Express 3/06 release, the Basic Registration Tool, Version 1.1 is included in the Solaris OS. Use the Basic Registration tool to create a registration profile and ID to automate your Solaris software registrations. This version of the software includes software registration user interface revisions and changes to the steps to register a system.

For more information about using the registration wizard or CLI to register your software, see Chapter 18, Registering Your Solaris Express 3/06 or 10/05 Software (Tasks). For information about installing the Sun Update Connection software and using the Sun Update Manager GUI to register your software, see the Sun Update Manager documentation in the Sun Update Connection Collection at .

Improvements to How patchadd M Command Handles Multiple Patches

Solaris 10: Starting with the Solaris 10 release, the functionality of the patchadd M command is improved to enable more effective and efficient handling of multiple patches and dependencies between patches. As a result, you no longer have to specify patch IDs in numerical order when using this command.

Note that if you use the patchadd M command without specifying a patch ID or patch IDs, all the patches in the directory are automatically installed on the system. To install a specific patch or patches, you must specify the patch ID when using the patchadd M command.

For more information, see the patchadd ( 1M ) man page.

Package and Patch Tool Enhancements

Solaris 10: The Solaris package and patch tools were enhanced in the Solaris 10 initial release to provide improved performance and extended functionality.

As a part of these enhancements, the pkgchk command now provides a new option to assist you in mapping files to packages. To map files to packages, use the pkgchk P option instead of grep pattern /var/sadm/install/contents. The P option enables you to use a partial path. Use this option with the l option to list the information about the files that contain the partial path. For more information see How to Check the Integrity of Installed Objects (pkgchk -p, pkgchk -P) and the pkgchk ( 1M ) man page.

Sun Patch Manager Enhancements

Solaris 10: Starting with the Solaris 10 initial release, the Sun Patch Manager tool (Patch Manager) is used to manage patches on Solaris systems. Use this tool to apply patches to Solaris systems.

You can access Patch Manager by using the GUI or by using the smpatch command-line interface.

Note

In the current Solaris release, you can use the Sun Update Connection to keep your Solaris system up to date. The Sun Update Connection software has the same functionality as the Sun Patch Manager tools, with the addition of some new features and enhancements. If you are running the Solaris 10 initial release, and you want to use Sun Update Connection, install the appropriate patches or upgrade your system to at least the Solaris Express 10/05 release. For more information, see Chapter 16, Managing Software (Overview).

For information about installing and using the Sun Update Connection software to manage patches and updates on your Solaris system, see the Sun Update Connection Collection at .

Patch Manager includes the following features:

  • PatchPro analysis engine – Patch Manager now incorporates PatchPro functionality to automate the patch management process. This process includes performing patch analysis on systems, then downloading and applying the resulting patches. This automation functionality was previously available for Solaris 9 as a separate PatchPro product and is now part of the standard Solaris release.

  • Local-mode command-line interface – The command-line interface, smpatch, can be used even when the Solaris WBEM services are not running on your system. This capability enables you to use smpatch to apply patches while your system is in single-user mode.

  • Patch list operations – Patch Manager enables you to generate, save, edit, order, and resolve patch lists. These lists can be used to perform patch operations, such as downloading and applying patches.

You must install at least the Developer Software Support Group of the Solaris Express software to use Sun Patch Manager.

For more information about how to use Patch Manager, see Chapter 22, Managing Solaris Patches by Using Sun Patch Manager (Tasks) and the smpatch ( 1M ) man page.